Blood Ties (11 page)

"Had his nap. Part of a nap. Two cats were fighting
under the house. He's cutting a tooth, so it doesn't
take much to wake him. I was wondering if you and
Daniel would like to come for dinner tonight."

"I'd be glad to," Bailey replied, "but Daniel is a sore
spot. He-"

Bailey heard something behind her, turned, and
gave a start. "Daniel! Damn it. You scared me half to
death, sneaking up on me."

"Bailey?" Cathy called. "Is Daniel there?"

She raised the phone. "I'll get back to you.
Promise." She ended the call and glared at Daniel.
"Where the hell have you been?"

A flush tinted his tan. "Sorry about last night, hon."

"Sorry? You're sorry?" She jammed her phone into
the back pocket of her jeans. "I made dinner for you
last night. Then I lay awake half the night wondering
what happened to you." He took a few steps toward
her, but she raised a hand in warning.

"Please. Just hear me out," he said.

"What? So you can tell me again that I have to trust
you? That you can't explain why you stood me up for
the third time?" She shook her head. "I don't know.
I'm not even sure how I feel about us anymore."

"Honey, you know I'd tell you if I could. It's just not
safe for you-"

"Does this have anything to do with Lucas?"

His lower lip twitched, and even his poker face
couldn't conceal that she'd made a direct hit. "What
do you know about him?"

She swore. "I've heard you say his name enough in
your sleep. You have nightmares. You refuse to admit it,
but you do. Whatever's haunting you, you need to share
it with me or seek professional help." She fumbled with
her engagement ring, pulled it off, and threw it at him.

He caught the ring and tightened his fist around it.
"You can't mean that."

"We need time to straighten this out. And if we
can't, I won't marry you. Ever." She tried to rush past
him, but he caught her and pulled her into his arms.

"I love you, darlin'. I love you more than-"

She stiffened. "Not this time. That won't work anymore. You need to be honest with me." She pulled free
of his embrace.

He looked into her eyes. "How can you accuse me,
when you haven't been honest either? Why didn't you
tell me about the baby?"

She could feel hot tears well up in her eyes, and she
blinked them back. "Who told you? Was it Emma?"

"Hell, no, it wasn't Emma. You forget where you're
at. There are no secrets on Tawes. Word gets around
fast."

"Who, then?"

"Phillip and Mary's daughter-in-law Polly saw you
buying one of those pregnancy test kits in a pharmacy
in Crisfield."

"What do you have? Spies?"

"It's just Tawes. You'll get used to it." His Adam's apple bobbed with emotion. "You should have told me.
I'm the father."

"I was going to. Last night. But when you didn't
show up, I ..." Her fingers knotted into tight balls.
"Where were you?"

He shook his head. "I can't tell you."

"Then consider this engagement on hold."

His eyes clouded, shutting her out. "Keep the ring. I
want you to marry me. I want to raise our child together."

"We need to settle this first."

He brushed a stray curl off her face. "Tell me you
don't love me."

Her stomach clenched. "I do love you. That's my
problem, I do. But I'm not going to screw up again.
I'm not going into another marriage with my eyes full
of stars. You talk about trust? It's all up to you." And
this time, when she walked away, he didn't stop her.

She was proud of herself. She didn't shed a tear until she reached the house, undressed, and stepped into
the shower.

The weather was nice when Karen left the cottage that
evening, but she still put on her nylon windbreaker
and tucked the pistol inside one of the zippered pockets. She wasn't afraid of the city, and she'd never felt
unsafe traveling back and forth to Penn. Still, she wasn't oblivious to the possibility of a woman being accosted on the street. And tonight, she was carrying a
fortune in antiquities. She hated to think what the
torque would be worth for the weight of the gold
alone.

She'd hoped to meet Irene late this afternoon, but
when she got to the house, she'd found a message on
the answering machine. Irene's lecture at Princeton
was running late, and she couldn't get back to town until after eight. She'd asked Karen to come to her office
at the museum, where they could inspect the artifacts.

Karen had started out the door, then went in again
to ring Abbie to make certain that she'd arrived safely
back on Tawes. She knew that helicopters were a necessity, and Abbie was a competent pilot, but Karen
was a typical mother. She worried. When she got no
answer on Abbie's cell, she tried Emma's house.

Nothing.

She keyed in Bailey's number and her friend picked
up on the second ring. "Hi," Karen said. "You haven't
seen anything of Abbie, have you?"

"As a matter of fact, I did. I saw the helicopter over
the house about five. Is there a problem?"

"No, no problem. I'm on my way to see Irene."

"I'm anxious to hear what she thinks," Bailey said.

"Me too." They exchanged pleasantries and ended
the conversation. Karen started for the door when the
phone rang. Thinking it might be Irene, she reached
for the handset, but when blocked appeared on the
Caller ID, she let the machine pick up.

"Abbie? Karen? Aren't either one of you there?
Damn. I was hoping to. . ." Despite the years since
they'd split and the distance between them, Vernon's
voice tugged at her heartstrings. Reluctantly, she let
herself out the side door as Abbie's dad continued
talking. He was a good man, a wonderful father. But he hadn't been the right husband for her. Maybe no
one would have been. Maybe she was a woman who
was better off without any man in her life.

Except for the sex. Vernon had been incredible in
bed. It had been the one place they'd always been in
tune. And good sex with a man she cared about was
the one thing she missed about her marriage.

She followed the curving walk through the cedars
toward the street. The home she had purchased more
than twenty years ago had once been a carriage house
for the grand Victorian mansion that shared the same
block. She'd loved the place the first time she'd laid
eyes on it, and she still loved it. Surrounded by boxwood and evergreens and set well off the street, the
cottage had been her oasis in the city.

She was halfway down the walk when abruptly something flew up out of the cedar branches in front of her.
She jerked back, heart racing as she recognized the
compact body and powerful wings of a great horned
owl. One moment he was there, so close she could almost touch him, and the next he was gone.

Karen swore. An owl! Old superstitions crept in,
raising gooseflesh on her arms. Owls were night predators. Seeing an owl in the daytime was the worst sort
of luck. Among many of the traditional people, they
were considered a messenger of death.

"Just a damn owl," Karen muttered. It was ridiculous
to be afraid of a bird. What next? Fleeing from black
cats and ladders? She tried to laugh at her own foolishness, but brittle unease settled in the corners of her
mind and made her watchful.

She got off at Thirtieth and walked toward the museum. Dusk was gathering over the Schuylkill; she
could hear the faint rush of water whenever there was
a lull in traffic. A young couple with multiple chains,
piercings, and fluorescent Mohawks strolled past hand in hand, followed by several boys on bicycles. A
man with a white cane and dark glasses and guided by
a seeing-eye dog walked toward her. An ice cream
truck passed, speakers blaring a scratchy tune. Three
crows flew overhead, returning to their colony for the
night. There weren't many tractor trailers or delivery
trucks at this time of the evening, but Karen was aware
of how noisy the city was after the quiet of Tawes.

Half a block from the museum, she quickened her
step, trying not to think about the owl her late father
claimed to have seen outside his door the morning he
crashed his truck. She tried to shake off her nervousness. Hadn't she spent hundreds of nights camping
alone at Mesa Verde and dozens of other isolated
sites? Hadn't she fought off a knife-wielding rapist in
Idaho and helped send him to prison? She was no
pushover. She could damn well take care of herself.

Footsteps sounded behind her. Stopping short, she
whirled around. A man hurried toward her, a tall man
with hunched shoulders and face averted. He was
about ten yards away, dressed all in dark clothing and
wearing a wide-brimmed, black hat. Her fingers tightened on the grip of her pistol as she waited for him to
come closer.

She moved to the edge of the sidewalk. A motorcycle sped by, followed by a car crowded with youths.
The windows were down, the radio blaring reggae music. The driver blew his horn and yelled at her.

Karen stared at the approaching man in black. He
held something in his hands, but she couldn't tell
what it was.

Suddenly he noticed her, lifted his head, and
smiled. "Gut evening."

It was all she could do not to laugh out loud at her
own foolishness. Her would-be mugger was an Old Order Amishman, and the weapon in his hand was a child's wooden toy. "Good evening," she managed, letting go of the gun and raising her hand in greeting. So
much for owls.

With the briefcase containing her precious artifacts
clutched tightly in her left hand, Karen turned back
toward the museum. She had nearly reached the entrance and had stopped once more to scan the street
when she heard someone call her name. She twisted to
see a figure partially obscured by the shadows.

Her eyes widened in confusion. "What are you-"

Too late, she reached for the pistol. She had it
halfway out of her pocket when her world shattered in
an explosion of splintering bone and pain. She
gasped as her knees slammed into the sidewalk. Another blow rocked her. Crimson shards whipped to a
whirlpool of color, and as the vortex swallowed her,
she was aware of nothing but the fluttering wings of a
great horned owl.

Abbie pushed aside the mosquito netting and crawled
out of the two-man dome tent just as dawn was breaking over the treetops. She'd hiked in to the site the
evening before and set up her camp near the water,
well out of the area where her mother had staked out
the first test pits. Despite Emma's warnings of wandering spirits and strange noises, no ghosts had disturbed
Abbie's sleep. She had awakened rested and eager to
begin her day's excavations.

Breakfast was a warm can of pineapple juice and
two granola bars. By eleven o'clock, she'd dug her
mother's first pit down another six inches and was
certain that this wasn't virgin soil. Either the spot
had once been tilled by early settlers or Indians, or it
had been dug up for some other reason. She'd
found no hint of burials at this level, but she had uncovered the bowl of a clay trade pipe, a broken arrow
point, some bits of charcoal, and a handful of stone
chips.

Extracting each artifact from the damp earth took time. The larger items had to be photographed in
place, sketched on the plot map before she put them
into plastic bags, and marked with identifying codes.
She'd discovered nothing unusual, but her mother
was tough. This was a Karen Knight dig. Each step had
to be followed meticulously, and any assistantdaughter included-who didn't follow procedure to
the letter was tossed off the site. It was a lesson Abbie
had learned by the time she was ten.

An early-afternoon thunderstorm sent her dashing
for the shelter of her tent, where she devoured another granola bar, a bag of raisins, and a pack of
peanut butter crackers. The downpour lasted more
than half an hour, and once it passed, she returned to
her work in the test pit. She was lying on her stomach,
brushing muddy soil away from another clump of
charcoal with a toothbrush, when she heard the faint
sound of a boat motor.

Perhaps five minutes passed before the bow of the
boat appeared. Abbie got up and rubbed the worst of
the mud off her clothing. By the time she'd walked to
the water's edge, Buck had slowly maneuvered the flatbottomed craft through the tangle of reeds and into
the partially enclosed pond. "Hey!" she called. "What
brings you here, Chief?"

He raised his hand in acknowledgment, but didn't
smile, making her wonder why he was so solemn this
afternoon. Buck cut the motor a few yards from shore,
dropped anchor, and lowered himself over the side.
The water rose to his hips as he waded in.

"What's the matter? Too lazy to hike in?" He had his
cop face on, which was way too serious, and a chill slid
down her spine. "Buck?" He stopped on the wet sand.
She noticed that he was barefooted.

"I have bad news." Avoiding her gaze, he pulled off his ball cap and slapped it against his dripping shorts.
"It's your mother-"